Page 75 of The Viscount's Promise
“I do mean it, Lydia,” he murmured. “You are nothing to me now. If you were to strip naked and perform the most erotic dance possible, I would feel not an ounce of desire for you.”
“You lie,” she shot back, though her voice lacked snap. She leaned into him. Her eyelashes fluttered against the flawless pink porcelain of her cheeks.
Yet they were flawed in his eyes, as they lacked the scar that had become desperately dear to him.
The unexpected reminder of Emily so stunned him that he froze. Would he never forget her? He saw it now, the long years stretched ahead of him, haunted by the memory of her.
Exhaustion bore down on him. Whatever future he had was cold and bleak without Emily’s light to guide his way out of the darkness that held his soul prisoner. He had never been so happy as when he had been with her. He should go back, make her see that they belonged together. He could be strong enough for the both of them.
The idea shocked him even more than the memory of her had. He stood stupidly for a moment, overcome with longing. Wondering why the thought of returning to her seemed so very right.
Lydia took his silence as confirmation that he truly did want her despite his protestations. With a small, knowing smile she repeated, “You lie. And I will prove it.” So saying, she grasped his arm and, before he knew what she was planning, yanked him out the garden doors and into the dark night.
• • •
Emily swayed on her feet, reaching for the wall as she watched Lady Morley pull Malcolm out the French doors and into the garden. She had seen the flirtatious glances the woman had given him, had seen the intimate way Malcolm had bent over the other woman and whispered in her ear. Those things had stunned her immobile, confusion and hurt shocking the breath from her body. Seeing them head out in an undeniable liaison, however, destroyed her.
Though she could discount the episode at Willowhaven as perpetrated by Lady Morley to come between them, how could she discount this? For it gave proof to every fear in her heart as nothing before it had.
She spun about, blindly seeking to escape the scene of her shattered hopes...and ran straight into Caleb and Imogen. Both their eyes were fixed to the spot Malcolm had been with Lady Morley. As one they turned their gazes on her, one mournful, one furious.
“Oh, my poor dear,” Imogen murmured, putting an arm about her.
“That stupid, idiotic bastard,” Caleb spat. He lurched in Malcolm’s direction.
“Wait!” Emily cried, grabbing at his sleeve. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you think? I’m going to put a bullet in that slithering, despicable former friend of mine.”
“You most certainly will not.”
Caleb stopped and stared at her, frustration and undiluted rage flaming in his eyes.
“Promise me, Caleb,” Emily begged in a quick, desperate whisper, “that you will not kill him. He is not worth it. I will not have my brother on the run over a mistake that I made.”
His glower returned full force. “It is not your fault.”
She ignored his attempts to soothe her guilt. As if she had no fault in the whole heartbreaking debacle. For all the mistakes Malcolm had made, she had made her fair share as well. She should have listened to him, instead of letting her battered heart and her fear guide her.
Though perhaps she had been in the right, after all, for wasn’t he running to the very person he had sworn he’d wanted nothing to do with?
“We all knew it was a gamble to come here,” she said. “Me more than any of you. I had the proof of his preference for Lady Morley and was fool enough to ignore my better judgment. Besides, Malcolm made no promise to me, no declarations. And—” Her throat closed for a moment, her gaze shifting against her will to where she had last seen Malcolm. “And I am tired,” she continued, low and fierce, “of accepting less than I am worth, of believing I’m not worthy of a happy life. As he is more than happy to go on with his life as if nothing happened between us, I will certainly not spend my life pining over him.”
With that, she turned and walked out of the ballroom. Away from the rubble that had been the promise of their life together.
• • •
Lydia dragged Malcolm into the shadows of the balcony. Immediately her mouth searched his out, her full breasts pressing into his chest, her slender, perfumed arms dragging him close.
Revulsion ripped through him. With a muttered curse he pushed her away. He took a quick glance about the balcony, thankful at least that they were alone. “Damn it, Lydia, what the hell is wrong with you? How many times do I have to push you away before you understand that I do not desire you?” he demanded.
Her eyes blazed in the moonlight as she glared at him. “You act the eunuch, and you ask what is wrong with me?”
“So I’m a eunuch for refusing your advances?” He let loose a sharp bark of laughter. “I’m glad to see your vanity is still intact after all this time. Why can’t you simply believe that I no longer want you in my bed?”
She made a sound of disgust. “You Arborn men, you are all alike. An attractive, desirable woman offers herself to you and you turn frigid. I begin to think, had I not given your brother a healthy dose of liquid courage, he never would have done the deed.”
A dark feeling settled in the pit of Malcolm’s stomach. The sounds from the ballroom faded away as his focus sharpened on her face. “Liquid courage?” he asked sharply. “What the hell are you taking about?”
